


The Pier

by MUSEquera



Category: Muse
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Friendship/Love, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-23
Updated: 2013-07-23
Packaged: 2017-12-21 03:00:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/895001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MUSEquera/pseuds/MUSEquera





	The Pier

It's cold and blustery out there, raindrops falling, hard as bullets, like curtains severing me from the rest of the world while I huddle inside my jacket under the pier. It's an odd place this, haunted, the wooden pylons and steel beams rich with memories that seep out to trap the unwary.

I can hear him calling my name excitedly, his voice filtered through the layers of our past, but still ringing clear against every exposed nerve ending in my body. I can see him, like a foggy yet recognisable presence, haunched on the tide line—he'd found a big jellyfish that day, washed up on the coarse sand, and he was enthusiastically poking at it with a blanched twig, looking like a little kid with his stupid dorky grin and oversized pea jacket. I smile wryly with a shudder: I had worn that bloody jellyfish before the end of the day.

I shake my head to clear it of the treacherous memories. I don't need him there right now. Not as he was then, not as he is now. What I need is time alone. Quiet. Breathing space. Like the coward that I am, I've run away, the recklessly fast drive that inevitably brought me here a meaningless blur. 

I wonder idly how long I've been sitting here. I wonder at the primal instinct that drew me here of all places, our safe place, our escape, the place where our friendship was forged through endless nights fuelled by cider and smokes and pot and 'shrooms. The one place imprinted with the start of us watching over me in what could be the end of us.

I don't want to think about it. I want to just breathe and forget, but my mind has other ideas, presenting me with a continuous slide show of the worst fight we've ever had. Normally we don't even argue much, so in sync with one another it's scary. Occasionally, though, we get out of sync, and that's where things go badly wrong, usually over the stupidest things. 

The problem is, we just don't know how to fight. Even in a fight there has to be some give and take, and we're both prima donnas who would not know how to give an inch if our life depended on it. So we snipe and snarl and shout and eventually throw punches until neither of us can stand, then we lick our sometimes figurative, sometimes literal, wounds in surly silence for a while and then start all over again, neither willing to back down. 

Eventually we sort it out by ourselves, or our friends get fed up, get involved, and knock our heads together until we both give in and make up. This time, though... 

My hands twitch, and I wish I'd had the foresight to find some pot before I stumbled here. Hell, even a bottle of cheap ass cider from the Co-Op would do me right now. Just as I finish that thought, I'm startled by a flagon of cider landing on the sand in front of me with a muted thud. 

I look up, open mouthed, to see him standing over me, watching me with unreadable eyes. "Wha...? How...?" I mumble at him, unable to get my brain to connect with my mouth. He plops down to sit next to me with a sigh, and pulls his phone out of his pocket, the screen showing the familiar old fashioned green radar screen logo of the phone locator app, "GPS, love." 

Before I can frame a response, he picks up the flagon, twists the cap open and takes a long swig, passing it to me with a grimace, "Ugh, I'm too old to be drinking this!" I look at him uncomprehending, "Why did you get it, then?" He motions for me to drink, and shrugs his shoulders, his hand waving around to encompass our setting, "It seemed fitting."

I take a swig, and screw up my face, shuddering at the sweet acid burning down my throat, "God, I'd forgotten how awful this shit was!" His quiet giggle sets butterflies fluttering in my stomach, and I shift my butt in the damp sand so I can look at him properly, taking him in as if it were the first time, my oddly beautiful blue eyed love. 

He looks tired. His face is pinched, there are dark circles under his eyes, his hair is more messy than usual, and he is hunched inside his jacket—actually, my jacket. My heart melts inside me as he looks back at me with scared wide eyes, and my hand flies to his face, stroking his cold skin, "You came after me." I say, my voice full of wonder, and he nods even as he leans into my hand, whispering, "I was afraid you wouldn't come back if I didn't."

My breath catches in my throat at his words, "I'm sorry, love. I'm so sorry for leaving you like that." Thinking about him waking up to an empty flat, not even a note to let him know where I was going, makes me want to puke. I swallow the bile rising in my gullet and force myself to go on, "I'm sorry. It was stupid and cowardly and reckless, I wasn't thinking straight."

He raises his hand to mirror mine, cupping my face, his eyes blurry with tears, "I was so scared when you weren't there, and you weren't answering your phone..." He closes his eyes, taking a couple of deep breaths, "I panicked. I thought you'd left me. I..." I can't watch this, I can't stand the pain on his face as he relives the aftermath of my idiocy. 

I pull him onto my lap and hold him to me, and he nestles in my arms with a sigh, his hands slipping under my jacket to fist in my shirt while I rock him gently and stroke his hair, waiting until his heart slows down to a normal rhythm under my hand before I speak. 

"I didn't leave you..." I say softly, and the squeaky little gasp that escapes him at my words just about breaks my heart, "I was running away. From myself." He pushes away a little to look at me, his funny little frown making an appearance, "From yourself? What do you mean?" I look down in shame, shaking my head, not wanting to confess, but his finger hooks under my chin and he seeks my eyes, saying firmly, "No. Tell me."

I nod and take a deep breath, closing my eyes and tucking his head under my chin; I can't do this with him looking at me. "I was enjoying it. The fighting. I was deriving some sort of sadistic pleasure from baiting you and saying the most hurtful things I could think of. And last night, when I realised what I was doing, hurting you on purpose, I couldn't stand it. I couldn't stand myself." 

For a moment, all there is just the sound of the rain and his breathing, because mine he stopped, waiting for his reaction. I gasp when his hand slips under the fabric of my shirt, cold fingers spidering along my collarbone, "You left because you were hurting me?" I nod once again, "Yeah. It would appear I can't stand to see you hurt, not even by me. I wanted to put as much distance between you and me as I could." I sigh, holding him tight, "I wasn't counting on your stubborn, tech-savvy arse following me here."

He laughs at that, burrowing closer into my arms, but then sobers up to ask, "Why here? According to the app you haven't moved for hours. I was worried you'd moved on, lost your phone or something." I look around, shaking my head, "Dunno. When I left, I just started driving. It took me a while to realise where I was going. And when I arrived I just parked the car and walked straight here." 

Tentatively, I brush his hair with my lips, my eyes flooding with tears as I smell my shampoo on it, picturing him alone and hurt and scared in the empty apartment, and seeking comfort in my shampoo and my clothes. I force myself to speak through the tears, "After the way I left, I didn't think you'd take me back. I thought we were over. I didn't know what to do, where to go." 

He knows me so well... he knows I'm not done, so he waits me out, letting me take my time. With a deep breath I go on, "This place is full of you. Of us. I felt close to you here, so I just stayed, sifting through the past and wallowing in guilt."

I am surprised to hear him chuckle against my chest, his hand grabbing a fistful of my jacket's collar to bring my eyes level with his, "And of course, during all this wallowing you never thought to check your phone for messages, right?" I look back at him with my mouth gaping open, making a stellar impression of a stunned mullet, "Messages? What messages?"

I reach for my phone only to realise that I must have flicked to silent mode at some stage. Looking sheepishly at him from the corner of my eyes, I check the screen. There are 14 text messages and 22 voicemail messages. All from him. "Oh, fuck me!" I exclaim, smacking my forehead repeatedly with it, "I'm sorry, love. I'm a fucking moron."

"Oh, for god's sake, give me that." He takes the phone away from me, putting it in the pocket of his jacket, and then, grabbing the collar of my jacket with both hands, proceeds to kiss me breathless. Once he's done, he holds me in place, eyes burning into mine like blue fire, and punctuating his words with sharp pulls on the collar, "Yes, you are a fucking moron. But you are my fucking moron, so don't you ever pull a stunt like this again. We clear?"

Smiling like an idiot, I nod like a broken toy, and he kisses me again, using his body to push me down on the sand. I can taste ocean and sand and cider in that kiss, and for a moment it is not two men fast approaching middle age twisting together into a kiss on that beach, but two teenagers in the first flush of love and lust.

He lets go of my lips with a grin, propping himself up on my chest, "Do you think Constable Trevallion still does the rounds of the beach at night looking for spooning couples?" Trust him to remember that. I laugh, "I rather think that the good Constable Trevallion will now be enjoying his retirement, love, it's been a while."

I see the evil light spark in his eyes, and I sit up, pulling him up with me until he's sitting straddling my hips, "Oh, no. No way! There's no fucking way we're having a shag here, you nutter. I'm too old to do the walk of shame with a sand rash on my knees and sand up my arse." He smirks at me, eyes crinkling in delight at having managed to get a raise out of me.

I roll my eyes at him, muttering, "Idiot." and lean in to capture his lips with mine and nibble at his gorgeous lower lip while my fingers comb through his hair, lightly massaging his scalp. He melts into me, his body fitting mine perfectly, and he moans into my mouth. After a moment, he pulls away with a giggle, "Either you stop that right now, or we are going to end up shagging on the beach like bloody teenagers." 

I let go of him with a sigh, and he stands, offering me his hand to help me up, "Come on, old man, let's go home." Hand in hand, we walk the short distance to the house that we bought a long time ago in a bout of nostalgia, our reluctant, symbolic tie to this place we were in so much of a hurry to leave for ever. Not so much a holiday home as a reminder of who we used to be, a place where we can still be that other 'us', surrounded by the debris of our past.

He stops me before we go in, taking my phone out of his pocket and quickly going through my messages. "What are you doing?" I ask, puzzled, and his bright eyes smile up at me, "I'm erasing the last eight hours. We are starting over." With a strangled, "God, I don't deserve you!" I take him in my arms and kiss him until there is no air left in my lungs. We break apart panting for air, and he hands me the door keys, saying, "Now take me to bed."

Later, he lays in my arms, soft and warm and loved up, my scent on his skin and his surrounding me, his slender fingers idly skimming my chest, raising goosebumps in their wake. It is peaceful, watching the flickering light of the candles on the dresser play on his smooth skin. 

I'm nearly drifting off when his quiet voice breaks the silence, "Please, don't ever leave me again." My arms tighten around him reflexively, my heart constricting at the thought of not having him in my life, "Never." I say, kissing his forehead, "Never." That is all it takes. Soft, guileless eyes full of love and trust lift to mine, "Ok. Night. I love you." Smiling, he reaches up for a kiss and, placing his head back on my chest, wriggles closer. "Good night, my love." I whisper into his hair, "I love you."

We fall asleep in one another's arms, back in sync, back to being 'us', and my last conscious thought is a prayer of thanks to a deity I don't believe in, and a solemn vow to never hurt him again.


End file.
